Democratic Backsliding

Gessler, Theresa & Natasha Wunsch (2025)A new regime divide? Democratic backsliding, attitudes towards democracy and affective polarizationEuropean Journal of Political Research

• ABSTRACT

  Partisan-based affective polarization has been posited as a key explanation for citizens' tolerance towards democratic backsliding, with voters more likely to overlook democratic violations conducted by in-party candidates. Our study theorizes and empirically explores the reverse perspective on this relationship: focusing on the role of the opposition, we submit that backsliding may crystallize an affective dislike among opposition supporters towards the governing party and its supporters that stems from a regime divide over democracy itself. To probe the plausibility of this argument, we leverage original survey data collected in Hungary, where democratic backsliding under the Fidesz government has resulted in an extensive remodelling of the political system since 2010. Our results point to a government–opposition divide in partisan affect and show how liberal democratic attitudes, especially among opposition party supporters, play into this dynamic. We suggest that where backsliding persists over a longer period, this process can shift even multi-party systems towards increasing bipolarity along what we term a ‘democratic divide’. Ultimately, our study proposes a novel lens on the dynamics of democratic backsliding by suggesting that affective polarization may play a positive role in backsliding contexts by uniting the opposition around the defence of democracy. Our findings point to a number of future research avenues to further analyse the interactive relationship between democratic backsliding and affective polarization.

Wunsch, Natasha, Marc S. Jacob & Laurenz Derksen (2025)The Demand Side of Democratic Backsliding: How Divergent Understandings of Democracy Shape Political ChoiceBritish Journal of Political Science 55: 1–22

• ABSTRACT

  Why do citizens fail to punish political candidates who violate democratic standards at the ballot box? Building on recent debates about heterogeneous democratic attitudes among citizens, we probe how divergent understandings of democracy shape citizens’ ability to recognize democratic transgressions as such and, in turn, affect vote choice. We leverage a novel approach to estimate the behavioural consequences of such individual-level understandings of democracy via a candidate choice conjoint experiment in Poland, a democracy where elections remained competitive despite an extended episode of backsliding. Consistent with our argument, we find that respondents who adhere less strongly to liberal democratic norms tolerate democratic violations more readily. Conversely, voters with a stronger liberal understanding of democracy are more likely to punish non-liberal candidates, including co-partisan ones. Our study identifies political culture, particularly the lack of attitudinal consolidation around liberal democracy, as a missing variable in explaining continued voter support for authoritarian-leaning leaders.

Chiru, Mihail & Natasha Wunsch (2025)Supranational responses to democratic backsliding: norm contestation and discursive polarisation in the European ParliamentJournal of European Public Policy 32(2): 392-416

• ABSTRACT

  The European Parliament (EP) has repeatedly been criticised for its slow, insufficient response to democratic backsliding in several member states. At the same time, it is the arena where we find some of the most vigorous defences of the EU’s fundamental values and appeals to safeguard the rule of law across the Union. Leveraging an original dataset of MEP statements from plenary debates over the last two EP terms (2009–2019), this article examines the dynamics of norm contestation in the EP’s responses to democratic backsliding. We observe a discursive polarisation primarily along ideological lines, with a notable slippage among European People’s Party legislators who shift from scepticism towards EU intervention in rule of law matters to overt support. We show how Eurosceptic MEPs and those from backsliding countries seek to appeal to domestic voters by invoking negative partisanship and anti-Western resentment to discredit EU criticism. In contrast, pro-intervention MEPs situate their discourse at the supranational level and focus on defending European unity and the rule of law as shared identity. Overall, the growing contestation over the nature of fundamental values by Eurosceptics has crystallized a more vocal and differentiated engagement of Europhile MEPs in democratic backsliding debates.

Blauberger, Michael, Daniel Naurin, Ulrich Sedelmeier & Natasha Wunsch (2025)The multi-level politics of countering democratic backsliding: state of the art and new research directionsJournal of European Public Policy 32(2): 323-40

• ABSTRACT

  After more than a decade of inaction or, at best, using soft instruments, the EU has become more assertive against democratic backsliding in member states. This special issue adopts a multi-level perspective to tackle the new research avenues that arise from this change in EU policy. Its contributions investigate two broad questions: first, the causes of this policy change, and second, its potential domestic impact in the backsliding countries. Focused on the EU level, a first set of articles revisits and refines existing accounts of EU inaction in order to explain the EU’s recent turn towards greater assertiveness. A second set of contributions concentrates mainly on the domestic level to explore the potential impact of the EU’s efforts to counter democratic backsliding in the member states that are the targets of EU actions. This introduction identifies the main themes of this new research agenda, provides an overview of the individual contributions to the special issue and their main insights, and sketches avenues for further research on countering democratic backsliding in the EU.

Wunsch, Natasha & Theresa Gessler (2023)Who Tolerates Democratic Backsliding? A Mosaic Approach to Voters’ Responses to Authoritarian Leadership in HungaryDemocratization 30(5): 914-937

• ABSTRACT

  In contexts of democratic backsliding, citizens represent the last bulwark against the systematic dismantling of checks and balances by overbearing executives. And yet, they repeatedly fail to punish authoritarian-leaning leaders at the ballot box, allowing them to consolidate their grip on power. Why is that so? We leverage a conjoint survey experiment in Hungary to probe competing mechanisms of citizen tolerance towards democratic violations in a context of severe backsliding. Our main contribution consists of demonstrating empirically the presence of a composite effect, whereby authoritarian-leaning elites succeed in offering targeted compensations to different groups, ultimately building a mosaic of support among voters to secure enduring electoral backing. We pinpoint trade-offs notably related to cultural conservatism and economic benefits among different subgroups of the population. At the same time, our empirical findings indicate surprisingly high levels of condemnation of undemocratic positions by Hungarian respondents. We discuss how this unexpected pattern points to the limitations of conjoint designs as well as the overlooked supply side of democratic backsliding. Our study feeds into broader debates about the unfolding and entrenchment of democratic backsliding and how we study these processes.

Wunsch, Natasha & Philippe Blanchard (2023)Patterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies: a sequence analysis perspectiveDemocratization 30(2): 278-301

• ABSTRACT

  Democracy has come under pressure worldwide, with growing concern over an apparent reverse wave of democratic backsliding at the global level. Bridging conceptual approaches and empirical research, this article investigates patterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies. It applies a range of innovative sequence analysis techniques to the Varieties of Democracy dataset to provide a dynamic perspective on the evolution of different types of democratic safeguards against executive expansion. The resulting typology differentiates stable trajectories from different patterns of backsliding and sheds light on the diversity of backsliding processes that diverge in their shape, depth, and timing in respect to initial democratic transition. The findings contribute to broader debates on the nature of democratic backsliding and have important implications both for our theoretical understanding of the phenomenon and the practical responses devised to counter backsliding trends.

Chiru, Mihail & Natasha Wunsch (2023)Democratic backsliding as a catalyst for polity-based contestation? Populist radical right cooperation in the European ParliamentJournal of European Public Policy 30(1): 64-83

• ABSTRACT

  The strengthening of the populist radical right poses an important challenge for European integration. This article explores whether democratic backsliding among member states has acted as a catalyst for broader PRR cooperation at the EU level. Studying the co-sponsorship and contents of parliamentary questions and roll-call vote cohesion of PRR representatives in the European Parliament from 2009 to 2019, we examine the extent and substance of their joint polity-based contestation of European integration. Our findings indicate that overall levels of PRR cooperation remain low and concentrated within European party groups, suggesting that ideological divergences between PRR actors and their institutional fragmentation within the EP still hamper their formal cooperation at the European level. These insights feed into debates on the potential and limitations of transnational cooperation of PRR actors.

EU Enlargement

Wunsch, Natasha & Marie-Eve Bélanger (2024)Radicalisation and discursive accommodation: Responses to rising Euroscepticism in the European ParliamentWest European Politics 47(6): 1223-50

• ABSTRACT

  The rise of Euroscepticism has shifted the structure of political conflict in the European Parliament (EP) towards an increasingly dominant pro-/anti-EU divide. Focusing on the hard case of EU enlargement, this article examines changes in MEPs’ discursive and voting patterns over the past two EP mandates. It combines two original datasets containing MEP statements during plenary debates and subsequent roll-call votes to examine the polarisation, cohesion, and consistency of legislative behaviour across different European Political Groups. The findings show that soft Eurosceptics drive a deepening of the pro-/anti-EU divide by radicalising in both discourse and vote to join hard Eurosceptics in their firm rejection of further enlargement. Pro-European MEPs, in contrast, show discursive accommodation of Eurosceptic concerns, with a growing inconsistency between sceptical discourse and continued vote-based support for enlargement-related initiatives. A case study of Turkey illustrates these two mechanisms. The findings shed light on the changing dynamics of political competition in the EP and the impact of rising Euroscepticism upon MEPs’ legislative behaviour.

Bélanger, Marie-Eve & Natasha Wunsch (2022)From cohesion to contagion? Populist radical right contestation of EU enlargementJournal of Common Market Studies 60(3): 653-672

• ABSTRACT

  The rise of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) in a growing number of European Union (EU) member states and inside the European Parliament (EP) has triggered concern over their ability to drive further contestation of European integration. Using EU enlargement as a test case, we analyse an original dataset of over 2′700 hand-coded statements from the last three EP mandates (2004–19) to trace the emergence of an increasingly coherent, oppositional discourse by PRRPs towards a further widening of the EU. We show that PRRPs contribute to a generalized hardening of opposition towards enlargement, but fail to impose their identity-focused framing upon other parliamentary actors. Instead, we suggest that mainstream party groups accommodate PRRPs' essentialist discourse by shifting from technical, conditionality-based reasoning towards more political arguments articulated around human rights and democracy. Our findings feed into debates about the transnational cooperation of PRRPs and the political impact of Euroscepticism.

Wunsch, Natasha & Nicole Olszewska (2022)From projection to introspection: enlargement discourses since the ‘big bang’ accessionJournal of European Integration 44(7): 919–939

• ABSTRACT

  This article explores enlargement discourses as a way to gauge the broader dynamics of European integration since the historical Eastern accession round. Studying debates in the national parliaments of France, Germany, Hungary, and Poland between 2004 and 2017, we use qualitative frame analysis to discern three types of political discourse on EU widening: normative discourses stress the EU’s soft power and its moral obligation towards candidate countries; pragmatic discourses concentrate on conditionality and enlargement as a stabilisation tool; and institutional discourses emphasize efficiency and state capacity. Our findings point to a diminished relevance of the external projection of EU values and practices and instead a stronger introspective emphasis on democratic quality and internal consolidation. Overall, discourses on EU enlargement thus mirror a broader shift in the perceived nature and direction of European integration.

Political Identity

Costin Ciobanu & Dani Sandu (2025)What Can Depolarize the Polarizers? Affective Polarization for Party Activists Before and After ElectionsComparative Political Studies 58(6): 1101-40

• ABSTRACT

  Although affective polarization threatens democracies, little is known about how to reduce it among one of polarization’s main agents: party activists. The challenge stems from the difficulty of studying activists longitudinally and in a real-world setting. To address these issues, we study whether contact between activists acting as party delegates in the precincts on election day reduces polarization, compared to activists who have other election day responsibilities. We leverage a pre-registered study of party activists in a European democracy using a difference-in-differences framework. We employ an 8300-response three-wave panel of members of a new party, collected immediately before and after the 2020 Romanian general elections. We demonstrate that party activists are affectively polarized and are mostly polarized against the out-party elites and out-party itself. Although election-day contact with out-party peers does not substantially and robustly reduce partisan animus, all activists depolarize immediately after elections and effects persist two months later.

Krzysztof Krakowski, Juan S Morales & Dani Sandu (2022)
Violence against politicians, negative campaigning, and public opinion: evidence from PolandComparative Political Studies 55(12): 2086-118

• ABSTRACT

  It is commonly viewed that violence against politicians increases support for the victim’s party. We revisit this conjecture drawing on evidence from an assassination of an opposition politician in Poland. First, we analyze engagement with Twitter content posted by opposition and government politicians using a difference-in-differences framework. Second, we use a public opinion survey collected in the days around the attack and compare party preferences of respondents interviewed just before and respondents interviewed just after the attack. Our results reveal decreased support for the victim’s (opposition) party relative to support for the government. To explain this finding, we show that the opposition antagonized the public by engaging in negative campaigning against the government over their politician’s assassination. Content analysis of tweets and news media confirms that citizens punished the opposition for their negative campaigning after the violence. Tentative evidence suggests that these effects could have had long-run political consequences.